The trial held on the petition of 42 ex-members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorist group
In the first part of theses series of articles, traumatic experience of Gholam Reza Shokri was covered as one of the numerous cases of human rights violations that has taken place in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization ( The MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi).
According to the Human Rights Watch report “No Exit”, in the early 1990s, dissent was on the rise Camp Ashraf. Former MKO members interviewed for this report cite the following reasons for their decision to leave the organization: military failure of the MKO to dislodge the Iranian government during the July 1988 military operation, forced mass divorces instituted as part of the “ideological revolution” and their persecution and torture by the MKO operatives during “security clearances” in 1994-1995.
According to the HRW report, “human rights abuses carried out by MKO leaders against dissident members ranged from prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement to beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture that in two cases led to death”.
1994-1995 marks the most horrible stories of torture and human rights abuse in the MKO’s Camp Ashraf, Iraq. Jamal Azimi (Known in the MKO as Majid Kaviani) wrote his tremendous memoirs of witnessing verbal and physical abuse in Camp Ashraf in 1994 (1373 Persian calendar).
Azimi is one of those reportedly 700 members of the MKO who were imprisoned and tortured in the project of “security clearance” during the 1994 to 1995. “The suppressive project was so huge that Rajavi could not launch it without preplanning; torturers and murderers should have been indoctrinated to operate Rajavi’s scenario,” Azimi writes.
He recalls that one of the female commandants named Sister Zarin called on all members to the eating place and spoke of the organization’s decisions for some cross border operations. “Everyone was nervous looking at each other in wonder and anxiety,” he writes.
The process of taking the rank and file to an unknown place was started the same night. “Assadollah Mosana came over and took one of the comrades,” Azimi recalls. “Two people took his locker to the other place. The process went on. Every night one or two people were removed from our unit. The unit became almost empty.”
Finally, it was his own turn. Assadollah called on Azimi and told him that Sister Zarin wanted to see him. In the new place he had to take map reading lessons. “The class was so boring. I had passed such courses several times… After some time the class was not as crowded as the first days. No one knew about the fate of the absentees.”
Azimi had no idea that those members had been taken for interrogation and torture in groups until the night that Sister Mehri called on him and his friend (nicknamed Ali) and told them that they had to go to the internal unit. “Hadi picked us up in his jeep and took us to the Street No. 100 [of Camp Ashraf]. We were thrown in a room of an abandoned building. They treated us so harshly…nothing was normal… we trusted the leader and our commandants so much that we guessed that they wanted to examine our devotion to the group,” Azimi recounts.
Finally Jamal was taken to the interrogation room where a superior member called Fazel started shouting at him: “You are a spy of the regime!”.
This was the accusation for all those 700 people. Azimi was shocked because he had joined the MKO on his own will. He had devoted his whole life to the group’s cause. “I could not believe that I was labeled as a spy after those many years of devotion to the Mujahedin,” he writes.
Azimi and Ali were then transferred to jail. “At midnight we heard loud screams. Someone was being beaten by others.” He recalls his memoir of the first night at the MKO prison. “It lasted for half an hour. We were listening to the sounds of scream and beating in fear and worry looking at each other. No one dared to speak. The screams ended. Ten minutes later, Mokhtar and Aadel [the two torturers that Jamal Azimi had seen as comrades before getting imprisoned] hurled a man in the cell and closed the door. He was unconscious. His nose and mouth were bleeding. His face was swollen and bruised.”
Jamal Azimi suffered the most terrible conditions of food, sleep and health in the MKO prison together with his six co-prisoners. All night long they heard prisoners whining from other cells. The prison guards –their former friends—treated them so terribly that no one could dare to ask why such a treatment.
After a dozen of days, once more, with tied hands and closed eyes, they were transferred to a place in Camp Ashraf called Castle No. 200. They were settled in a big room that housed 20 people. “The room was very dirty, full of garbage, dust and human’s stool. It smelled very bad,” Jamal writes.
“In the entire days I spend in Rajavi’s jail, I saw tortured people whose face was not recognizable because of too much beating,” he says. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. I could not realize such atrocities against my friends.”
One of the tortured ones had been in the same unit that Azimi was. Azimi got close to him and asked him what the problem was. He was so terrified that he could not open up. Finally he said, “They wanted to force me to admit that I am the spy of regime but I did not admit such a false accusation.”
“What did they beat you with?” Azimi asked the bleeding man. “With wooden sticks, cables and Brother Hekmat beat me with a sleeper,” he replied.
This was a technic to intimidate other prisoners. Everyone in the cell was worried waiting for his turn to get tortured. Jamal Azimi was not tortured personally but he witnessed his comrade’s pains and sufferings after they were physically tortured by the MKO authorities. “I think if the group had the possibilities, they would have involved all members in their “security clearance” project,” Azimi suggests. “I do not know the exact number of members who were imprisoned and tortured in this project. After it was finished comrades would estimate different numbers, but most of them agreed on 700.”
In his opinion, Security Clearance was Rajavi’s tactic to silence any voice of dissent in the group. Rajavi seemed to be planning for an establishment in which no one would be allowed to express his/her criticism or opposition against the group’s leadership and strategies.
Mazda Parsi
When in May 2005 the Human Rights Watch reported on the huge violations of human rights inside the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ The Cult of Rajavi), the subtitle “Security Clearance” discussed the conditions in which human rights abuses took place in the group’s camps. “During late 1994 and early 1995, many members of the MKO were arrested by the organization’s operatives inside their camps in Iraq,” the report reads. “They were interrogated and accused of spying for the Iranian government. They were released in mid-1995 after being forced to sign false confessions and stating their loyalty to the leaders.”
The authors of the HRW’s report “NO EXIT”, interviewed five former members of the group Farhad Javaheri-Yar, Ali Ghashghavi, Alireza Mirasgari, Akbar Akbari, and Abbas Sadeghinejad. “According to their testimonies—detailed in the next section—the purpose of these arrests was to intimidate dissidents and obtain false confessions from them stating that they were agents of Iranian government. This period was known as the “security clearance”.”
Human rights abuses carried out by MKO leaders against dissident members ranged from prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement to beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture that in two cases led to death.
Based on NO EXIT report, the severe cases of torture ended with the death of at least two people Parviz Ahmadi and Ghorban Ali Torabi. However, after the report was published in 2005, a lot of testimonies and memoirs of defectors were published confirming the HRW’s report and in many cases, numerous facts on the human rights abuses in the MKO were added to those that were stated in the report.
Since the relocation of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization in Albania and the increased defection from the group, more revelations were made on the “Security Clearance” in 1994 and 1995. Gholam Reza Shokri who left the group in 2017 recounted his traumatic experience of torture in the MKO’s jail in an interview with Spiegel.
Shokri spent 27 years of his life in the cult-like MKO. He was only 20 years old and willing to find a good job in Europe when he was recruited by the MKO in Iraq. The MKO agents promised to help him get the European visa only if he stayed in their camp for a few months.
As soon as he entered the organization, they confiscated his ID documents and never gave him back.” whenever I asked for my ID, they would say that they had no idea where it was.”
Thus, Shokri had no way out of the MKO camp but he frequently used to ask the leaders when he could leave the cult. This question was considered a sin by the leaders. Departure from the MKO was forbidden and showing your willingness for leaving the group would be faced with suppression, imprisonment and torture. So he was imprisoned in solitary confinement.
Shokri said that they had closed their eyes and took him to a clandestine jail. “They insulted me calling me spy of the Mullah’s regime,” he recounts. “They beat me in my legs so badly that I could not walk; they were bleeding. They tied my hands with hand coughs for a week. After a week my hands had no sense; I put the fire of a cigarette on them but I didn’t feel it burn. Then they forced me to stand up for one more week. Each time that I fell down out of fatigue, they would beat me so hard that I had to stand up again.”
Shokri recalled that after a week his legs were bruised and turned black. Blood did not circulate to his head so he fainted. He showed the scars on his legs to the interviewer.
He was under torture for 45 days. Finally Massoud Rajavi called on the tortured members and threatened them that if they expose what has happened to them and if they intend to leave the group they would be handed over to Iraqi authorities under the regime of Saddam Hussein. This meant that more torture or death would be waiting for them.
Thus, Shokri stayed in the MKO for another 23 years until September 21st , 2016 that the group leaders finally let him leave.
Mazda Parsi
Letter to Ms. Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice‐President of the European Commission
Ms Federica MOGHERINI
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice‐President of the European Commission
Brussels – July 1st, 2018
Dear Ms Mogherini,
With regards, we are the family of Malek Shara’i. He was captive inside the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, NCR, NLA, Rajavi Cult) in Albania. He spent the last 21 years as a modern slave in the organization.
Now after these long years, despite all the futile efforts that we made to see our loved one, we learned that Malek Shara’i, who, according to the evidence had most probably decided to leave the organization, was brutally murdered while trying to escape.
The MEK announced in a statement that Malek had drowned in a reservoir near to the MEK camp in the suburbs of Tirana, but not the slightest sign was found to prove this claim after two weeks of searching by expert divers and local police.
Malek was a professional swimmer as well as having been trained as a diver and lifeguard. Therefore the MEK’s hollow statement that he first saved someone and then later could not save himself is not acceptable.
Unfortunately, the Albanian authorities are silent in this matter, under the pressure of a terrorist cult, and do not make any moves and have even instructed the local police in writing to close the file and announce him as a missing person. No thorough investigation was made inside the MEK camp and among its residents.
Malek is not the first person who has been physically eliminated for opposing the policies and deeds of the cult. Our main concern is that he may not be the last.
We want to know how a terrorist cult can take up residence in a remote place in Europe and have an open hand to eliminate its discontented members. Why have the police and the authorities tried to close this controversial file as soon as possible? Has the body been found or is it known how he was killed that the organization announces him dead?
Ms. Mogherini
We members of Malek’s family (mother, brothers and sisters) urge you to question the Albanian government about why they have given in to a terrorist cult and have stopped the investigations and keep silent about it? The local authorities announced that no corpse has been found in the reservoir and therefore the MEK’s claim is a fabricated lie.
We wish you to intervene and ask the Albanian representatives and authorities, whose country has applied to join the EU, for explanations. The Albanian media have written about this matter but have had no impact at all. They have clearly written that to find the corpse they must look inside the MEK camp and not inside the reservoir. This is something the investigators must now be required to do.
Yours sincerely,
Mother: Masoumeh Torkamani
Brother: Hossein Shara’i
Brother: Jamal Shara’i
Brother: Abbas Shara’i
Sister: Zeinab Shara’i
Sister: Zahra Shara’I
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The mysterious disappearance of a member of the Mojahedin Khalq (MEK) terrorist group in Albania has once again drawn attention to this controversial group. Malek Sharaee, 47, originally from Khuzestan Province in Iran, was reportedly drowned in the Rrotull village irrigation water reservoir. After three days, divers have not found his body even though the water channel is only 3.5 meters deep. However, a MEK representative and three MEK witnesses say his clothes were found at the water’s edge. Police are now investigating this as a possible criminal offense. Even so, unless they gain access to Camp Ashraf Three, the MEK’s purpose-built training camp in Manez, they are unlikely to unearth the truth – MEK impunity is far greater than this small country can deal with or penetrate.
MEK (aka Saddam’s Private Army) was unknown in Albania until they arrived after 2013. Their bizarre behavior and controversial activities soon became the focus of media attention.
But the MEK’s dark history began long before this. Along with well-publicised military-style terrorist attacks on Iran since the 1980s, the MEK was also trained by Saddam Hussein’s Mukhaberat (Secret Services) and later by Israel’s MOSSAD, in intelligence gathering and secret operations. As a result, MEK has also conducted many covert terror acts and assassinations over the years. Several of these were deliberately staged to make it look like Iran was involved. Such as the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. In spite of extensive investigation, the primary evidence linking Iran came from four high ranking intelligence officers from MEK. In 2011, a man connected to Mexican drug dealers was arrested for the attempted murder of the Saudi Ambassador to America. The US quickly accused Iran, but after two weeks the perpetrator was linked to MEK. In 2013, Israel arrested a Swedish Iranian man, Ali Mansouri, who ‘confessed’ to be spying for Iran in Tel Aviv. He turned out to be a MEK member.
The underlying pattern behind these events is of deception and callous, cynical murder. These examples are not unique. MEK has a long history of highly sophisticated and brutal undercover activity. However, the reported death of Malek Sharaee in Albania this week also points to a new phase in MEK covert activity. This time individual MEK members who were previously involved in known acts of violence are now themselves becoming victims of their own organization.
Internal assassinations are not new – Commander Ali Zarkesh was deliberately killed during a military operation in 1988 because he had become critical of the leadership. There have been hundreds of reports of suspicious deaths and actual murders over the last three decades committed against critics and rivals.
In 2013, former MEK member Massoud Dalili was identified as the 53rd victim of a massacre at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. MEK only acknowledged his death when the Iraqi authorities formally identified him via his DNA. Dalili’s body had been deliberately disfigured (his face and hands burned) to hide his identity. Massoud Dalili had been one of the personal security personnel for leader Massoud Rajavi. He had undergone training with Saddam’s Republican Guards and the MEK’s own specialist training. Before coming to Iraq, Dalili had headed a small MEK team in Gilan Province where he was responsible for scores of deaths, including civilians
Another victim killed during the same attack was Zohreh Ghaemi, She had commanded the assassination of General Sayad Shirazi in 1999. Of the other victims that day, at least ten are known to have participated in known acts of violence for MEK. No one claimed responsibility for the attack on Camp Ashraf.
In 2015, in the Netherlands, Mohamad Reza Kolahi was killed by a criminal gang on the order of MEK. Investigators confirmed that Kolahi was responsible for the 1981 bombing of the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in Tehran in which 72 high-ranking politicians and party members were killed.
Another MEK member, Massoud Keshmiri, responsible for the bombing which killed PM Bahonar and President Rajai in 1981, was last seen with MEK in Germany some years ago. He has since vanished and could be dead. Although these deaths cannot be said to be directly linked, there is a common thread whose purpose becomes clear when we remember 2016 when Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi Intelligence chief, announced the death of MEK leader Massoud Rajavi. It is clear from this that MEK is being purged from top to bottom of all the individuals who have had involvement or are associated with its violent past – rebranding by assassination to make the group legally acceptable.
MEK has become the pattern for how other defeated terrorist groupings can be reinvigorated, rebranded and reused. The controversy following the Bulgarian PM’s announcement that “Albania will become a coordination center for fighters returning from ISIS to the Balkans” may die down soon – Prime Minister Rama later dismissed this as fantasy, but he is not convincing.
Instead, the history of the MEK in Albania indicates that the same scenario will be repeated. As ISIS fighters arrive and settle, the process will start just as it did with MEK. Expect more mysterious murders, suicides, disappearances, bizarre interventions to prevent investigations. And, of course, the involvement of Albanian citizens, politicians, and personalities for and against. Plus, not only abandoning any hope of joining the EU, but suffering more restrictions on the borders with the EU and Balkan countries.
Massoud and Anne Khodabandeh, Balkans Post,
Massoud Khodabandeh is the Director of Middle East Strategy Consultants and has worked long-term with the authorities in Iraq to bring about a peaceful solution to the impasse at Camp Liberty and help rescue other victims of the Mojahedin-e Khalq cult. Khodabandeh co-authored the book ‘The Life of Camp Ashraf – Victims of Many Masters’ with his wife Anne Singleton.
(END)
Right-wing, anti-Iranian figures and media in the United States have begun circulating claims that Iran had 
violated the JCPOA that resulted from the P5+1 nuclear negotiations, and indeed has a nuclear weapons program. Various pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian voices in the US echoed this claim. Mark Toner was even asked about the allegations during a press briefing in April. The source for this allegation was the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a front group for the Mujahadeen E-Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors). Putting aside the group’s shady history, terrorism, and bizarre cultish practices, the claims should have immediately been discredited. Why? These exact same forces were caught lying back in 2015, with similar claims. In 2015, as the nuclear negotiations were nearing their completion, the NCIR published photos of a safe, claiming it was in Iran and contained materials related to a secret nuclear weapons program. The photo the NCIR released was proven to have been taken from a French website selling safes. The group was caught in an obvious lie.
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Iran’s nuclear energy program has never been proven to have any military uses. The International Atomic Energy Agency has watched over all of Iran’s nuclear activities, and following the negotiations in 2015, almost all of the peaceful nuclear energy program has been shut down.
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A Bizarre “Islamo-Marxist” Terrorist Cult
The 2015 photo flub was not the first time the MEK has been caught lying about Iran. Over the last ten years they have continued to make claims that they have proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. None of their claims have ever been verified. MEK did, however, cooperate with Israel’s Mossad to assassinate peaceful nuclear scientists teaching at Iranian Universities. Who is the source of all these fraudulent claims that continue to be treated with credibility in the US media? So, who is the MEK?The Mujahadeen E-Khalq is a religious/political cult formed in Iran during the 1970s. At the time Iran was led by a US backed dictator, the Shah. While various groups organized resistance to the Shah in the form of guerrilla warfare, strikes, and protests, the MEK conducted adventurist acts of violence and terrorism. In addition to Iranians, Americans were also victims of MEK’s terrorism prior to the Iranian revolution of 1979.
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The Mujahadeen E-Khalq calls its belief system “Islamo-Marxism.” The founder, Masoud Rajavi, claims to be a prophet brought to earth by God in order to usher in some kind of Islamic Communist revolution. MEK’s beliefs could almost be described as an Islamic version of Reverend Jim Jones “People’s Temple,” which reached its peak during the same time period. Like Rajavi, Jones also claimed to be some kind of prophet who could spiritually combine the world’s religions with soviet-style Marxism in order to foment global revolution. Also like the People’s Temple, many people have died as a result of Rajavi’s fanatical and violent organization.
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A History of Terrorism & War Crimes
After Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the MEK (also called People’s Mujaheddin) briefly aligned with [Ayatollah] Khomeini, hoping they could influence the Iranian revolution from within. After one of their allied clerics was deposed, the MEK launched a bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic. In 1981, the MEK bombed a meeting of Iran’s Islamic Republican Party, killing 72 people.
During the Iraq-Iran war, Saddam Hussein began funding and arming the MEK. The MEK formed an armed body called the Iranian National Liberation Army. In 1988, MEK fighters were airdropped into Iran by Iraqi aircraft. Its members proceeded to raze villages, slaughtering, men, women, and children, before ultimately being defeated by the Iranian military. It is estimated that tens of thousands of civilians were killed by MEK fighters during the Iraq-Iran war.
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After the war, MEK set-up shop in Iraq, being coddled by Saddam Hussein’s government. Hussein used the MEK as shock troops to suppress the Kurds and other uprisings against him during the 1990s.
MEK is now headquartered in France, with Maryam Rajavi, the wife of the cult’s founder, claiming to be Iran’s President in exile. During the 1990s, the cult ordered all members to divorce their spouses, as marriage was considered a distraction from achieving the cult’s goal of toppling the Iranian government. MEK’s base of operation, Camp Ashraf in Iraq, has been operated as a kind of mini-police state. According to Human Rights Watch, within Camp Ashraf, the death penalty and torture is frequently used against residents. Reports described individuals being dragged by ropes around their necks, among other routine atrocities.
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The Spirit of the Agreement
Throughout his presidency, the Tea Party and Republicans frequently accused Barack Obama of being a “Muslim” and a “Communist.” Ironically, however, the Mujahadeen E-Khalq is a favored group of the Republican Party, despite being self-described as “Islamo-Marxists.”With the support of Hillary Clinton, the MEK was removed from the list of designated foreign terrorist organization in 2012 by the US State Department. The decision was based on claims that MEK had “renounced violence.” However, at the very time the process of delisting was in the works, MEK assassinated Iranian Nuclear Scientists.The fact that the group was caught intentionally using a fake photograph against Iran in 2015, in addition to all of its terrorism and war crimes, should discredit its recent statements about Iran in the US media. However, despite their previous lies and horrendous record, certain US media outfits remain so biased and hostile to Iran, that they still repeat their claims.
While no evidence exists that Iran has violated the JCPOA, Donald Trump recently stated to the press that Iran had violated “the spirit of the agreement.” How does one define “the spirit?” Will Iran be punished for such a subjective crime, despite fulfilling all of its written obligations? Only time will tell.
Grean Villepost.com
Mr. Mohammad Hossein Sobhani ; former high ranking member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Cult wrote an enlightening article- in persian on the occasion of the release of 50 MKO dissident members from the Abu Quraib – the Iraqi Baath regime prison.
The article reads:” January 21st reminds me and others – who were prisoners of Abu Quraib, of the bitter as well as sweet memoirs of our freedom from that gruesome prison. In January 21, 2002 a number of 50 MKO dissident members whom were handed over to the Iraqi former dictator; Saddam Hussein by Massoud Rajavi, got released by the help of international organizations.
Honoring this day, I want to remind Massoud Rajavi and Mujahein-e Khalq that we do not let their treasons and crimes be forgotten….it is very bitter and regrettable to see an organization which claims to be after freedom, equality, justice, democracy and monotheistic classless society But imprisons dissent members and those who were no more willing to cooperate with the organization in solitary confinements for years and then hand them over to Saddam Hussein; the Iraqi former dictator. Saddam relatively imprisoned them at Abu Guraib prison under the name of “Mujahedin’s loan “[ Amanat-e Mojahedin ]. We, MKO dissident members, had committed no crime… “
Mr. Sobhani, went to Iraq as a member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq in the early 1980s. In 1992, Mr. Sobhani declared his doubt and dissatisfaction with the group leader – Massoud Rajavi’s strategies. Since then he underwent a prolonged period of imprisonment .
Mr. Sobhani is one among hundreds of individuals who victimized by the MKO leaders.
The 28-page report, "No Exit: Human Rights Abuses Inside the MKO Camps," examines how dissatisfied MKO members were tortured and held in solitary confinement. The report is based on the direct testimonies of a dozen former MKO members, including five who were turned over to Iraqi security forces and held in Abu Ghraib prison under Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Sobhani is one of these five witnesses:
” Mohammad Hussein Sobhani spent eight-and-a-half years in solitary confinement inside the MKO’s main camp in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, from September 1992 to January 2001. He was subsequently held in Abu Ghraib prison and left Iraq in 2002.
Sobhani first came in contact with the MKO in 1977, a year before the anti-monarchy revolution. By 1979, he was working “professionally and full time” with the organization. When the headquarters of the armed wing of the organization relocated inside Iraq, he followed suit. By 1991, he had risen in the ranks of the organization and had become a member of the Central Committee. However, ever since the “ideological revolution,” when divorces were mandated, he became uncomfortable with the path pursued by the leadership. His differences with the leadership of Masoud and Maryam Rajavi and other members of the Central Committee reached a climax in 1992. Masoud Rajavi argued for remaining in Iraq regardless of the end of the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991, he said. Rajavi still hoped that fighting between Iran and Iraq would resume, and based the organization’s strategy on such a development. Sobhani says he found the possibility of a new war highly unlikely given the dismal state of Iraq’s armed forces. Other members of the Central Committee saw his arguments as a challenge to the Rajavis’ leadership:
As long as my criticisms were mild, I was left alone. But as soon as I persevered in my questioning, their behavior changed dramatically. In the beginning, I discussed my concerns personally with the leadership, Maryam and Masoud Rajavi. I also brought up my concerns with other members of the Central Committee. These discussions reached a dead-end. Once they became certain that I didn’t share their views, on August 28, 1992, they convened a meeting (neshast taiin taklif) to determine my faith and to decide if I was staying with the organization or not. The process began with intimidation, verbal abuse, and beatings. Of course, since I was a high ranking official I was treated better than ordinary members. I was told that my criticisms and questions were just an excuse to quit the struggle. Their conclusion was that I was a quitter (borideh) and didn’t have the strength to continue the struggle any longer.50
On August 31, 1992, Sobhani was moved to a prison and kept under solitary confinement for the next eight-and-a-half years.
After the first two months in prison, all of my beliefs in the organization fell apart. Up to that point I considered my differences with them as a matter of divergent political views; I wasn’t questioning the MKO’s underlying essence. I used to mark my prison walls each time I was subjected to severe beatings. There were many occasions of lesser beatings, but on eleven occasions I was beaten mercilessly using wooden sticks and thick leather belts.51
Sobhani was handed over to Iraqi officials in January 2001. He spent one month in mukhabarat prison and then transferred to Abu Ghraib. He was held in Abu Ghraib until January 21, 2002, when he was repatriated to Iran in exchange for Iraqi POWs. In Iran, he was detained and interrogated by the Iranian government. After three days, he escaped from a low security detention center and fled Iran. He is currently living in Europe.
Joe Stork, HRW’s Washington director said:” Members who try to leave the MKO pay a very heavy price,"… These testimonies paint a grim picture of what happened to members who criticized the group’s leaders."
Since the so called “ideological revolution” in the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO) in the 1980s, relationships and emotions have been destroyed. Rajavi’s “ideological revolution” forced members to divorce their spouses and eventually to forget their families. A few years later, Rajavi sent all children outside the group’s camps.
Thus, in the isolated camps of the group, children were no more with the parents, ex- couples could no more think of each other, brothers and sisters could no more visit each other except for a short time in the new year celebration and under the supervision of the group authorities.
Love is unheard of in the cult of Rajavi. The only kind of love that is not only permitted but also obligatory is the love for leader. All members should kill the love of their children, family and ex-spouses in their hearts, instead they should grow the love of their leader in their mind. Female members should consider Massoud Rajavi as their only love, their only husband!
As the individuals who are taken as hostages in the Cult of Rajavi do not have any access to the outside world, they are not able to contact their families outside the group.
Despite the efforts made by families of the MKO’s hostages to visit their loved ones in the group’s camp, the group authorities use all types of tactics to keep members far from families demonizing families as spies of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry!
Love is a variety of different feelings, states and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure. The hostages in the MKO Cult are deprived from all of these interpersonal affections, feelings and pleasures. They are just indoctrinated to idolize their leader, Massoud Rajavi.
Love is one of the most profound emotions known to human beings and this deep relationship is one of the meaningful elements in the life of human beings. Love provides people with a source of deep fulfilment. The MKO leader has tried hard to shallow this source of fulfilment and to alternate it with an absolute obedience to himself.
Therefore, living in the cult of Rajavi requires denial of the love for your spouse, children, relatives and friends. Besides, caring about love make the cult member accountable for punishment. The punishment in the MKO ranges from self-criticism report writing, peer pressure, being humiliates by superior members and peers, psychological and even physical torture.
In case that family of an MKO hostage try too much to contact their loved one in the MKO camp, the hostage is indoctrinated to write a statement against his or her family. This might be the harshest punishment for a person who thinks of love!
Mazda Parsi
Masoumeh Gheibipour was a mother whose son was separated from her under the leaders’ decisions in the 
Mujahedin Khalq Organization ( the MKO/ the Cult of Rajavi). Prominent former member of the Mujahedin Khalq, Batul Soltani recalls the times that they both suffered grieves of separation from their children. ”We both missed our children”, she writes. However, they could not criticize the cult-like system ruling the group.
Masoumeh was not used to observe religious rules well so she was under severe peer pressure in the cult, according to revelations made by Batul Soltani listiong a number of dissident members of the MKO who were physically diminished by the leaders.
“She was all the time suppressed by the group authorities for her careless covering or for not performing prayers,” Batul Soltani writes.
Meanwhile, another former member of the MKO, Edward Termado writes about Masoumeh Gheibipour,”She used to take her headscarf back to show off her hair as a way to protest suppressions made by her superiors.”
Edward Termado describes the grieves of Masoumeh, “Before she was separated from her son, she looked happy and delighted to see her son in the camp but her son -Makan- was sent out of Iraq. Since then she always looked depressed and sad.”
Batul Soltani who was a friend of Masoumeh stated how Masoumeh left her life behind by openly criticizing the leaders’ approaches in public meetings. “She was so courageous that she could stand up in the meetings and say “Ideological leadership is a suppressive argument.” Her courageous objections was then resulted in grave pressure by the side of the group authorities or her peers. She was labeled as “traitor”. Batul recalls that one of the agitated brainwashed women in the meeting saying “if you cheat on Masoud, I will strangle you!”
Eventually, Masoumeh was found dead in her bed a few days later. She was strangled to death by her headscarf.
When Batul got to know that Masoumeh was killed, she rushed into the location. No one was there except twelve members of the newly elected members of the Elite Council!
Batul was so shocked that she got sick after the horrible incident. Then she was made to attend a meeting in which Maryam Rajavi tried to convince them that Masoumeh was loyal to Massoud Rajavi until the last moment. “Nothing was said about how Masoumeh was killed,” Batul Soltani writes.
Surprisingly, a few days after her assassination, the group announced that Masoumeh passed away in hospital! They graved on her tomb that she died from an illness!
International Women’s Day is annually held on March 8 to celebrate women’s achievements throughout history and across nations. It is also known as the United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace. However, this day is a time for certain opportunists who abuse the term “Women’s Rights” despite their long history of atrocities against women. Leaders of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization – who apparently seek equal rights for women- are actually huge abusers of women’s rights.
There are numerous reports and testimonies on human rights violations committed in the MKO. The most recent one is published in a book by Ms. Maryam Sanjabi. She writes her firsthand account on grieves of living in the Cult of Rajavi in her book “The Mirage of Freedom”.
Maryam Sanjabi joined the MKO in 1986 after her brother — also an MKO member – was executed by the Islamic Republic. Maryam was promoted to a high-ranking member in the MKO’s hierarchy until authorities suspected her of being the agent of the IR. “in 1994, after 8 years of working 18 hours a day for the organization, I could never imagine I was suspected by the leaders,” she writes.
When she was summoned to Camp Ashraf for interrogation, she was not worried because she thought that it was a misunderstanding and eventually it would be resolved but nothing went on as she expected.
“After the iron gates of Camp Ashraf was closed behind me, they took me off the car while beating me and insulting me,” she narrates her gloomy story.
They closed her eyes and tied her hands and threw her to a room where five other women were jailed. Maryam was shocked, she could not think of anything and do anything except crying. ”I could not believe that the organization that I had chosen with love as my ideal was treating me like this”, she writes.
She was then interrogated by Fatemeh Kheradmand who accused her of being the Iranian government’s agent. Sanjabi protested against the unjust accusation but she was punished physically. She was jailed in solitary confinement. She was lashed on her hands and feet until she passed out… She spent a dozen days under the harshest tortures.
“They made me bow in front of a wall for hours, until I felt nauseous, I vomited and again they forced me to bow”, she describes the tortures she endured in the MKO’s prison.
Maryam’s body was awfully wounded, blued and swollen when the MKO authorities took her to Baghdad. There, she was treated rather normally. This was the start of a new indoctrination process. They showed her new films of Maryam Rajavi’s speeches in Paris on a new devious titled “individuality”. Based on the new program, all members had to allegedly confess all their problems and secrets before joining the organization. They had to criticize themselves for their so-called dishonesty.
New meetings were held for the lately planned manipulation system. ”I realized that meetings were held in a violent atmosphere in which all members were humiliated by verbal and physical attacks from the peers,” she writes. Self–criticism meetings were planned to terrorize members’ individuality and personality.
By the way, Maryam Sanjabi was then taken to Massoud Rajavi’s residence. This was a trial for her. According to Massoud Rajavi, Maryam Sanjabi’s charge was spying for Iranian government. Following Sanjabi’s protest against the accusation, Massoud Rajavi told her, “You may be right but you might have been deceived by your brother so we will search to find out if you are a spy or not”!
After a few months, Rajavi talked to the accused member by phone and said,” Congratulations! We got sure that you were not a spy”!
This story was the story of human rights in the cult of Rajavi. In this destructive cuklt, the process of trial is vice versa. First you are punished, then you are sent to prison and torture, then you are charged with your accusation and then you are proved to be innocent!
It may seem ridiculous but it is definitely a dark comedy. According to Ms. Sanjabi at least 100 women and 500 men in the MKO suffered the same process she endured just under the false pretext of being Iranian agent. “During the days of my imprisonment in the first jail, I could always hear sisters’ [female comrades] cries of pain calling for help,” She reveals.
Therefore, the International Women’s Day is an opportunity to hear the calls of help from inside the camps of the Mujahedin Khalq, in Iraq, France and Albania. It’s time to bring Massoud Rajavi – the fugitive leader of the cult – and his wife Maryam Rajavi to justice for the crimes they committed against humanity particularly against their female members. The International Community should beware of Maryam Rajavi’s propaganda about women’s rights!
Mazda Parsi